


When you're bitten by a snake

by RavenRambles



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: Emma centric, Gen, it's a metaphor harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8630452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenRambles/pseuds/RavenRambles
Summary: A look at Emma in relation to snakes, venom and growing from her experiences. Kinda more of an analysis of the show rather than a story? I don't know. Anyways, this is Emma centric and there's major spoilers for S1 and 2 as well as the halloween ep so yeah. Enjoy!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to followedbymercy on tumblr for encouraging this.

When you’re bitten by a snake, you have to suck the venom out; or so the saying goes. But even if Piper Shaw was the most mesmerising of cold blooded reptiles, her bites weren’t laced with a slow working venom that Emma could have easily gotten rid of. No, Pipers fangs did not deliver a fatal killing dose that could have been sucked away and forgotten about. They were merely anchors, hooking under Emma’s skin to distract her from struggling as strong coils constricted around her life and squoze until there was hardly anything left to take. If each murder, each clue, each phone call was a carefully controlled strike against her skin, searching for the softest spot to dig in and create the most pain then The Dock was the beginning of the end. By that point, Piper’s fangs were so deep they were scratching bone and her coils were wound so tightly that Emma found it extremely difficult to breathe.

Honestly, Emma was surprised that she didn’t see Piper coming. That she didn’t feel those coils getting tighter because she was focusing on the sting of Piper’s fangs.

Then again, Emma hadn’t seen a lot of things coming.

She spent so much time with the therapists, trying to make sense of the hardening coils that still constricted around her even though the snake was dead, that she naively convinced herself that Piper’s death was the end of things. Convinced herself that Piper’s ‘one last surprise’ was nothing more than one last squeeze of the coils to try and remove the rest of the air out of her lungs. Snakes are solitary creatures, after all, so how could she have known that this one was travelling with a friend?

If Piper Shaw was a Constrictor then Kieran Wilcox was a snake of a more venomous variety. His tail served as a distraction, rattling in the dark to confuse and taunt and warn his victims away whilst he slunk towards them through the shadows and got ready to strike. Each murder, each clue, each phone call was a deliciously precise rattle in the night, toying with her and running her round in circles until she was too tired to continue. However whilst Piper’s fangs were anchors, distracting her from the coils causing the slow and painful crushing of her life, Kieran’s were the final blow. He toyed with his prey before striking hard and fast, delivering the slow working venom that got under Emma’s skin and into her bloodstream.

She _really_ didn’t see that one coming. 

Kieran’s bite was definitely dangerous and life threatening, poisoning the good and pure things in her life until she was lying prone with that horrific rattling in her ears and so much self doubt she felt paralyzed. Or so he thought. What he didn’t realise was that he miscalculated the dose. What he forgot was that the more you make someone bleed, the more poison you need to kill them; and Kieran hadn’t delivered a killing blow, something he realised when he was being held by the throat before he could even think about striking again.

When you’re bitten by a snake, you have to suck the venom out; or so the saying goes. The saying never alludes to the fact that if you get bitten enough, the experience turns you paranoid and cold until you’re searching every shadow for a rattle and upturning every rock looking for scales. It doesn’t tell you about the hard lumps of scar tissue where you and your friends pulled fangs from your flesh, nor the way to cope when you become as solitary as the thing that caused this behaviour in you. It doesn’t tell you that even if you managed to suck out all of the venom, you can’t get rid of the memories of it tearing like fire through your veins and it’s going to take what seems like forever to fix the damage.

If Piper and Kieran were snakes, then Tom was nothing more than an annoying rat out for blood and eager to please. He scuttled in corners, a tiny rodent with delusions of grandeur, trying to “protect” his prize from people that got in his way. He made the mistake of turning on his muse when she decided to do something about the irritation. His bite was inconsequential against her armoured skin. She swayed back and forth, mesmerising and enticing as she lulled him into a false sense of security. Then she bit back, since that’s what he wanted, crushing him with a crunch of her jaws.

She’s Emma Duval, she doesn’t need his protection.

He didn’t see that one coming.

She’d spent so much time with the therapists and her friends, trying to understand Piper and Kieran as the last vestiges of their venom and constriction changed her from the inside out, that she hadn’t seen how much stronger she was for it. The self doubt, lack of courage and paralysis sloughed off her like shedding skin, leaving her new and breathless and feeling so much larger than before.

Because if Piper and Kieran were snakes, then you’d better fear the creature they've created.

  



End file.
